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Albert Watson (South Carolina)
| birth_place =Sumter, Sumter County South Carolina, USA | death_date = | death_place =Columbia, South Carolina | resting_place=Crescent Hill Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum in Columbia, South Carolina | office=U. S. Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district | term_start=1963 | term_end=1971 | preceded=Corinne Boyd Riley | succeeded=Floyd Spence | office2=State Representative from Richland County | term_start2=1955 | term_end2=1959 | term_start3=1961 | term_end3=1963 | profession=Attorney | party=Democratic (1955-1965) Republican (1965-1994) |residence=Columbia, South Carolina |religion=Southern Baptist |alma_mater=North Greenville Junior College University of South Carolina School of Law |branch=United States Army Air Corps |rank=Weather Specialist |battles=World War II |footnotes= }} Albert William Watson (August 30, 1922 – September 25, 1994) was a politician from South Carolina. Originally a Democrat, in 1965 he became the first Republican in modern times to represent the state in the United States House of Representatives. He is best known for his losing 1970 campaign for governor of South Carolina. Early career During World War II, Watson served as a weather specialist in the United States Army Air Corps. In 1950, he graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law and thereafter opened his legal practice in Columbia. In 1954, he was elected from Richland County to the South Carolina House of Representatives, which he served from 1955 to 1958. In 1958, Watson lost the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor to Burnet Maybank, Jr., son of a former U.S. senator. In 1961, Watson returned to the state House for a final two-year term. Congressional career In 1962, Watson first ran for South Carolina's 2nd congressional district seat. Five-term incumbent John J. Riley had died in office in 1962, and his wife Corinne Boyd Riley, had served out the remainder of her husband's term. Watson secured the Democratic nomination and then faced Floyd Spence, a fellow state representative from neighboring Lexington County who had turned Republican a few months earlier. The ensuing general election was far closer than expected, with Watson winning by only five percentage points, with crucial support from his mentor, U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond. In 1964, Watson was reelected without opposition. However, the House Democratic Caucus stripped Watson, along with Congressman John Bell Williams of Mississippi, of his seniority for supporting Barry Goldwater. Watson then resigned from Congress on February 1, 1965, and sought his former position as a Republican in a special election held on June 15, 1965. Watson won the special election with 69 percent of the vote to become the first Republican to represent South Carolina in the House since 1896, and the first to win an undisputed House election in the state since Reconstruction. He was comfortably reelected in 1966 and 1968. Watson's opposition to civil rights legislation exceeded that of most other Southern Republicans. In 1970, Watson won the Republican gubernatorial nomination. He then faced strong competition from the Democratic nominee, Lieutenant Governor John C. West. Watson ran television advertisements featuring scenes from riots which occurred five years earlier in Watts, Los Angeles. The spots became so controversial that the Republican mayor of Greenville, R. Cooper White, Jr., cited them in his refusal to endorse Watson.The Changing Politics of Race, p. 233 Watson's running mate was James Marvin Henderson, Sr. Official results gave West 251,151 votes (52.1 percent) to Watson's 221,236 (45.9 percent). Red Bethea of the American Independent Party polled 9,758 votes (2 percent).South Carolina Election Commission, 1970 general election returns Watson blamed his loss on the low turnout: 482,000.Greenville News, November 6, 1970 Historians consider Watson's gubernatorial campaign to be the last openly segregationist campaign in South Carolina and one of the last in the South as a whole.http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2004/03/21/2004032127575.htm Later years In 1971, Thurmond asked Nixon to appoint Watson to the United States Court of Military Affairs, but opposition arose from Democratic U.S. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, who the next year became Nixon's general election opponent. Nixon retreated from a Senate showdown over the nomination because of civil rights ramifications that would emerge from a confirmation fight.New York Times, May 26, 1971, p. 22, and May 28, 1971, p. 8 In October 1972, Nixon instead named Watson to a one-year appointment which did not require Senate confirmation as special assistant in the Social Security Administration. Watson was charged with streamlining the appeals procedure. Watson later became a Social Security administrative law judge in Columbia, a position from which he subsequently retired."The Changing Politics of Race," p. 240 Watson died in Columbia at the age of seventy-two in 1994 and is interred there at Crescent Hill Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum. References Category:1922 births Category:1994 deaths Category:University of South Carolina School of Law alumni Category:South Carolina lawyers Category:South Carolina politicians Category:South Carolina Republicans Category:South Carolina Democrats Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina Category:Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives Category:People from Sumter County, South Carolina Category:People from Columbia, South Carolina Category:Baptists from the United States Category:United States Army personnel Category:American military personnel of World War II de:Albert William Watson